Surprise --- I know Nepali!

Welcome to Temple Square! My name is Sister Despain & I’m from North Carolina :)

This has been a week of high intensity excitement & stressors. For whatever reason, they tend to come all at once! Missions are the best roller coasters of life. You want to put your hands up in the air, scream, laugh & throw up – all at the same time! Then we wake up & get back on the next day! WHOOOO!!!!!!

I know it’s Friday, I know my P-day is Saturday and I also know that today is April Fool’s Day. This report is not an April Fool’s Day joke. I strongly dislike this holiday. I think we should put April 1st to better use. Like, how about National Flower Day or Glad to Be Alive Day! Why does April 1st have to be special anyways? General Conference is celebration enough; we should make THAT the holiday!

Anyways…

As a privileged leader in GS, I get to know the entire schedule of Temple Square every single day! [Ya, a lot is going on, up in my noggin!] I noticed that Sunday night we had a tour scheduled with none other than ELDER WIDENHOUSE! I was sitting there, wishing it could have been me to schedule the tour just so I could hear how his mission was going when *bring bring* the phone rings! “Temple Square, Guest Services. This is Sister Despain – How can I help you?” “Hi Sister Despain, this is Elder Widenhouse! How are you?” We talked for 15 seconds & then I rescheduled his tour for him. I love those moments when you know that as missionaries, you’re helping out a friend. So cool! Speaking of friends, Laurel West & Kate came to see me! It was so weird…and awesome and FUN! They gave us two potentials :) From Inbound calls, I invited FIVE guests & TWO of them referred for missionaries! I love feeling productive!

We had 10 people schedule to call in ONE HOUR. No, we’re not trying to take on too much :) It’s just that we have extremely limited time to call, with our GS schedule so we try to call as many people as possible. We ended up with 3 New Investigators: Tori, Shanita & Conner. We committed everyone we called to watch General Conference. One of the best times of the year for commitments!

The small things in life have really become apparent throughout my mission. Another example from Tuesday: we ate lunch in the kitchen! With other missionaries! I KNOW! Not exciting – but it was for us because we always have to eat in GS & so we never get to sit with other Sisters and talk. We had a wonderful 30 min dinner full of laughter, food & uplifting conversations. For WP, we had 20 people to plan for! Isn’t that amazing! I am in no way trying to “boast of our own strength” but rather show that when we are obedient, the Lord truly does bless us! We have too many investigators for the time we have! Isn’t that THE BEST problem to have on a mission!!!

President Holmes told us about the discovery of metal plates [as in THE gold plates kind of plates, not dinner plates] in Jordan! Sister Elias is from the city where they think they were discovered, so he had her in GS to show her the article! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?! It’s the funniest thing, after an RC call I told Sister Nelson, “Dang it! I totally could have tied in Priesthood & eternal families! What was I thinking!??!?” It’s amazing the things that occur to you AFTER you’re done with a call :) Always looking for ways to improve. We ran into a Senior Missionary couple who brought two Nepali sisters to the Square. I said hello & introduced myself – they in turn, introduced themselves & we impressed the surrounding crowd that some chic from NC could communicate with two women from Nepal! Best believe!!! I miss Sister Khadgi. She taught me so much & I wish I had passed off in Nepali – I miss those people so much :)

Sister Nelson & I got proposed to Wednesday morning. Yup – you read it right – we were made an offer of marriage! More specifically, by our investigator in Uganda! Hahahaha he was so impressed by Sister Nelson’s prayer that he couldn’t contain himself & asked if we were married, if we’re writing someone back home, how old we are etc. We told him time and time again that as missionaries we focus 24-7 on teaching the gospel of Christ. He then proceeded to inform us that his mother lives in Chicago & perhaps she could buy us for him? Uhh….no. Some experiences – you never think you’ll have :)

All day yesterday (TH) we were on exchanges with our District Leader, Sister Hardy(AZ). She is a wonderful leader & we were able to learn a lot from our time with her. As we planned the night before she said, “I just wanna see why y’all are rockstars!” Again, I’m boasting in our insane amount of blessings this transfer – but turns out we’re leading our ZONE in numbers :) We were talking about it last night, Sister Nelson & I and I couldn’t help but feeling like Elder Rogers & Elder…Kirby Heyborne – I can’t remember his Elder name! Oh no! Anyways, like them – when they’re “leading the mission”. It’s the best feeling in the world to know that all the time you put into working 12 hour days really does pay off. That we are accomplishing something! That even with our few hours of motors time that we are able to pack 10 people in an hour & maximize our time. I LOVE IT!

We passed Elders Oaks, Ballard, Bednar & Perry on our way to pick up new referral cards :) So cool!

The days are literally FLYING by! This is the best work any of us could possibly be doing. There is nothing more rewarding than sharing your most precious knowledge with others. Everyone needs to have the opportunity to hear about this message & I wake up excited every day to have more time to share it with LITERALLY everyone I talk to! I absolutely love being a missionary! I almost don’t want to ever leave! Almost ;)

Love you all,
Sister Despain JR